Life of a Chalkstream: To the barricades! Or not?

Greetings!

In all the excitement of cakegate, partygate et al you might have well missed out on the latest episode of s**tgate – the creation of the Office of Environmental Protection (OEP).

A child of the Environment Act that came into being last November the OEP is a new public body that is tasked with holding to account government departments, government ministers, regulators, local authorities and some private bodies, such as water companies – but only in respect of their public powers and duties.

Glenys Stacey - OEP Chair

So yes, you have read it right, we have a new regulator to regulate the regulators. You really could not make this up but that is where we are; the likes of the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science to pick out three of the eighteen government agencies listed by the OEP, will now have to answer complaints from the public at large that will be routed through the OEP. Of course, guess who is missing from the list? Yes, our old friend OFWAT.

Will the OEP be a force for good to, in its own words use its “powers and duties to make the greatest contribution we can to environmental protection and the improvement of the natural environment”?

In the short term, the answer has to be no – this whole edifice is a bureaucrat’s wet dream and, at their own admission, still very much a work in progress with it yet to appoint a permanent CEO with an invitation to us all to comment on the Draft Strategy Consultation. Plus the legislation required to legally bring the OEP into being has been delayed until autumn 2022 at the earliest.

It also seems doubtful to me that (but I’m happy to be corrected) that the OEP will not be a conduit for complaints about water company behaviour. At best you’ll be able to complain to the OEP that the EA are not doing their job to regulate this or that water company.

However much I’d like to wish the OEP well, in my heart of heats I doubt it will have any significant impact – one part of government commenting on the actions of another part of government is hardly the storming of the Bastille. Judge for yourself https://www.theoep.org.uk/

Nether Wallop otters are back

I’m certain in my own mind that we must be somewhere close to peak otter. Everywhere I go, from tiny headwaters to the wide rivers close to the sea, I see evidence of otters: trails, spraints, slides and the detritus on many a compacted crayfish.

In my chalkstream lifetime I’ve never seen anything like it; even as recently as the 1990’s the sight of an otter was a rarity. Today, it is almost a shoulder shrugging event. But why do I say peak? Well, the otter population is largely self-regulating. They are highly territorial creatures, guarding river frontage from all comers with a hierarchy of dominant males, territorial females and displaced juveniles. There is only so much territory and food to go around, so the attrition rate from birth to sexual maturity is wicked. Maybe one in ten reaches the age of two and very few otters live beyond five.

Here at Nether Wallop Mill I think we are now at the stage of the grandchildren of The Otters’ Tale heroine Kuschta. Last summer we were mobbed with a family of four who had stayed for nearly a year, but they dispersed in the autumn. It has been a quiet winter until just recently with the arrival of a family of three, mum and two pups but the groups visits are as yet infrequent though I suspect mother silently sneaks in every night.

It is going to be touch and go as to how many of the winter fish are around come opening day …….

Billions

If you are a fan on the Sky series Billions keep a look out for Shawford Park on the River Itchen in the later episodes of the currently showing Series 6 as the home of hedge fund billionaire Bobby Axelrod played by Damian Lewis.

It was quite the production that took place last summer with most of July given over to a massive crew gathering in true Hollywood style with miles of cabling, lighting, trucks and limousines. As far I know all the scenes were shot inside, including some in the very impressive ballroom.

Shawford Park

The rain in England .......

As a regular reader you will know that it is about this time of year that I start to get twitchy as I look to the skies for rain. As of late, I have looked in vain – it has been a far from wet winter.

November was dry, some parts of England recording as little as 20% of Long Term Average (LTA) rainfall. December was more or less average. January was better than November but not by much with average rainfall ranging from 51% in the north down to 32% in the south. Taken as a whole that is 65% of LTA for the past three months, 83% for the past six and 92% for the past year.

The net result is that rivers, having held up well until the turn of the year, are now tending towards being noticeably below normal for the time of year. With plenty of rain in the forecast for the coming fortnight, and groundwater/reservoir levels holding up, I’m not overly worried but it will not stop me looking to the skies for a while to come.

River flows in England as at 1 February 2022

Ash Tree Corner

Even a dead tree has utility. After finally giving in to dieback the fallen ash tree on Bullington Manor Beat 2 now has a new life as what is called in the current trendy conservation argot, woody debris.

It will no doubt be a bloody nuisance as a weed collector during cutting times, but it will be a fish magnet whilst continuing to be a collector of badly cast flies.